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Letters to the Editor

Letters is an open forum for our readers. Letters should be original to Gambit Weekly and be no longer than 400 words. Letters might be edited for length and clarity. Write to Letters, c/o Gambit Weekly, 3923 Bienville St., NOLA, 70119; fax to (504) 483-3116, or send email to response@gambitweekly.com. Include a home address and daytime phone number.

Natural vs. NationalI
appreciate the cover story, "Farm Futures," written by Sara Roahen in Gambit
(Dec. 3). We at All Natural Foods have promoted organic food for over two decades.
It is important that people are informed about organic food as an alternative
to the chemical-laden food which is commonly available in the mass market.

Since 1994, All Natural Foods has carried
100 percent organic produce. We have been the organic stronghold of New Orleans,
yet we were not interviewed or even mentioned in the Gambit article.
This article came out two days before the opening of Whole Foods' new store
on Magazine Street. What better advertisement for their opening could they have
asked for? Does this national chain need public relations assistance from Gambit?

I remember when Gambit started having
national advertisers. This "local rag" was changing. Now, Gambit appears
to be supporting Corporate America through editorials, ignoring long-time local
businesses. The Gambit of old might have had a feature article about
the importance of keeping local businesses alive with the influx of national
chains into the city.

As Gambit marches into the future hand-in-hand
with Corporate America, our small businesses of New Orleans need local journalistic
support. Perhaps those of us who hold on to those things that give New Orleans
its charm and flavor do so in vain.

--Michael Zarou
Owner,
All Natural Foods

Thank You, Brod BagertBrod Bagert
opened his heart and soul to plead for the former residents of St. Thomas at
a recent City Council meeting ("The Challenger," Dec. 3). The Council barely
noticed him.

Mr. Bagert's only agenda was the plight of
the St. Thomas residents. He found out the truth. Like the Indians, the residents
have been shunted off their land, which is now prime real estate. Pres Kabacoff
issued his ultimatums to the Council. The Council lined up, with Mrs. Gill Pratt
taking the lead, to bow to King Kabacoff.

These politicians nearly sold us down the
river with their water privatization scheme. Now they are targeting the people
least able to protect themselves. This city of incredible poverty and horrifying
literacy rates in the midst of the most economically successful country in the
world continues to destroy its own poor like a Third World leader whose self-interest
is the order of the day.

Mr. Bagert must have awoken Saturday morning
with a bruised and aching heart, having run into the thick concrete wall of
political gain and expediency. I thank him for his courage. Nonetheless, he
will recover and head toward a promising future. Unfortunately, the former St.
Thomas residents have no future to help ease their broken hearts, hearts betrayed
by the City Council.

--Marsha Walley and Adolph Lopez

The Genteel DAMy attention was called to your allusion (or illusion) of former multi-term
Orleans District Attorney and Louisiana Attorney General Eugene Stanley in your
commentary ("Legalize Medical Marijuana," Nov. 12). As Mr. Stanley's nephew,
this is my reply:

Man, it's tough being long dead and having
few who remember what you were really like when a journalist decides to quote
you, vaguely, by indirect innuendo. Fortunately for Eugene Stanley, among the
few who remembered and recorded the larger thrusts of his work was T. Harry
Williams, the acclaimed historian. In the pages of Williams' masterwork Huey
Long, Mr. Stanley is portrayed as a figure of considerable backbone and
acumen, with integrity of a near heroic sort given the context of his times.
A stark contrast to most people's view of today's legal profession.

I spent countless hours in his household (he
had no children), primarily in the company of my aunt, but often with him. Recollection
of my uncle brings remembrance of a man of genteel qualities who liked to entertain
his young nephew by taking him to see trains and ships. He occasionally offered
admonition against playing with fireworks, but that was about as severe as he
would get. In his home, you would hardly know that it was the Deep South in
the 1950s. Never from him, in contrast to some of my Uptown schoolmates, most
of whom were from the "best families," did one hear the "N" word, nor any jingoist
racial comment of any flavor. The closest I can come to race-related recollections
of him would be his taking calls, in his days as a criminal defense attorney,
from black as well as white clients in trouble late at night. He also went occasionally
out of his way, and out of his pocket, to be sure that the household domestic
lady had her major medical needs provided for. These were the days before all
of us liberals made the government, with its now huge "services" bureaucracy,
responsible for everything. Though the late DA might have been taken aback by
the decidedly "left" activism of my college and post-graduate years, I am confident
he would not have been a harsh critic of the counterculture politics of myself
and my baby-boomer generation. He was too tolerant.

In short, from my youthful but keen recall
of this man, I see little that would fit with the curious caricature-like "reflected"
reference you provided in attempting to make opposition to the legalization
of "medical" marijuana look silly.

As I reviewed your haw-haw put-down of a man
who has justifiably gone down in history for having honorably stood his ground
against Louisiana's most powerful and strong-willed governor, I experienced
your piece as a rather surreal departure from reality. One could probably dig
up selective statements on minor issues from virtually any local politician
or journalist of days gone by which would tend to disfavor their memory by today's
lights.

But your attribution and the exceptionally
indirect manner in which it was put make one need to ask, "What is it y'all
are smoking?"